Yes, that is me in the purple gorilla costume holding a sousaphone while pointing forward. This picture is from a halftime show with the UW Husky Marching Band, a very active and upbeat group of musicians seeking to perform at the highest level. To achieve this, band-members do not just passively sit around and look at music and memorize their notes and spots. They must engage actively in order to get to the highest level. They must practice their instrument, memorize music via multiple run throughs, and repeatedly march the same series of steps until it becomes muscle memory. In order to truly master something, you must do that something until it becomes second nature. Anyone can look like a fool on a football field, but only some can do so while holding a heavy instrument wearing a ridiculous costume.
As a future educator, this philosophy of mastery by doing will carry over into my classroom. The more that my students are actively doing labs, thinking through problems, and investigating phenomena, the more that they are truly learning. Not just learning for the sake of passing a test, but true learning for their own personal betterment and satisfaction. The best scientists are constantly questioning the world around them, and as a teacher it is my job to foster this same curiosity and inquisitiveness in my students. Active learning facilitates this by putting the students at center stage as they physically and mentally do the learning. This approach creates natural engagement with material that some students may usually find "boring", and by removing this barrier to learning these students can access knowledge that was previously harder for them to reach. I want my students to find their own gorilla costumes, and to do this I need to ensure that they learn actively.
So, a little about me...
Yes, that is me in the purple gorilla costume holding a sousaphone while pointing forward. This picture is from a halftime show with the UW Husky Marching Band, a very active and upbeat group of musicians seeking to perform at the highest level. To achieve this, band-members do not just passively sit around and look at music and memorize their notes and spots. They must engage actively in order to get to the highest level. They must practice their instrument, memorize music via multiple run throughs, and repeatedly march the same series of steps until it becomes muscle memory. In order to truly master something, you must do that something until it becomes second nature. Anyone can look like a fool on a football field, but only some can do so while holding a heavy instrument wearing a ridiculous costume.
As a future educator, this philosophy of mastery by doing will carry over into my classroom. The more that my students are actively doing labs, thinking through problems, and investigating phenomena, the more that they are truly learning. Not just learning for the sake of passing a test, but true learning for their own personal betterment and satisfaction. The best scientists are constantly questioning the world around them, and as a teacher it is my job to foster this same curiosity and inquisitiveness in my students. Active learning facilitates this by putting the students at center stage as they physically and mentally do the learning. This approach creates natural engagement with material that some students may usually find "boring", and by removing this barrier to learning these students can access knowledge that was previously harder for them to reach. I want my students to find their own gorilla costumes, and to do this I need to ensure that they learn actively.